DI V INE ACTION A ND THOMISM.

W H Y THOM AS AQUINASS THOUGHT

IS ATTR ACTI V E TODAY
Ignacio Silva*
Summary : 1. Introduction. 2. Thomas Aquinas and the History of Divine Action Theories. 3.

Thomas Aquinas on Divine Action : Primary and Secondary Causation. 4. Some uses of Aqui-

nas doctrine today. 5. Some objections to Aquinas understanding of primary and secondary
causation. 6. Conclusion.

1. Introduction

T he notions of providence and divine action, and in particular the meta-

physical mechanisms by which God might be said to act within the cre-
ated universe, have been discussed at large in the past two decades within the
English-speaking philosophical and theological academic environments. The
thought of Thomas Aquinas was not absent from these discussions, attract-
ing both proponents as well as objectors to its principal propositions. America
philosopher Alfred Freddoso, in a lecture given at Notre Dame University not
too long ago, on July 2014, remarked that even when Thomism was left behind
for the most part of the twentieth century in Catholic American philosophy, it
has of late received a new influx of academic vigour, mostly in the philosophy
of nature and the philosophy of religion. 1 He says that we seem finally to

have reached a point in the narrative of English-speaking philosophy at which

there is a new and increasingly explicit openness to Aristotelian-Thomistic
scholasticism. 2 His main argument is that seventeenth century philosophy,

which dismissed Aristotle and his followers including Aquinas, while offering
innovative ways to read the book of nature, in the long run, by the end of the
twentieth century, posed many unsolvable problems in particular related

* Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Mansfield Rd OX1 3TD, uk. E-mail :

ignacio.silva@hmc.ox.ac.uk
1Interestingly, though, the Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, edited by Brian Davies and
Eleonore Stump in 2012, does not include any analytic discussion on this topic.
2A.J. Freddoso, St. Thomas on the Philosophical Intelligibility and Plausibility of the Doctrine
of Divine Providence : Situating Summa Contra Gentiles 3, chap. 64, Aquinas Philosophy

workshop, St Marys College, 2014, p. 5. Retrieved from http ://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/

unpublishedpieces.html.

acta philosophica i, 25, 2016 pp. 65-84

66 ignacio silva
to the notion of causation that a new (or perhaps old) perspective was re-
quired and sought for. Many scholars today, thus, are reading the works and
doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, finding a very powerful stock of metaphysical
tools to tackle these problems of old. Among these is the issue of the relation-
ship between Gods action and the actions of created being.
This paper will be devoted, thus, to arguing for the use of Aquinas thought
in these contemporary discussions, briefly presenting a sketch of the main
arguments with which Thomists are engaging today, in particular those in-
volving Gods creation and Gods direct action in the created universe. Given
that such topics are usually taken to be related to the natural sciences, I will
mainly focus on authors making special references to the theories of the Big
Bang, quantum mechanics, and evolution of species by natural selection. I
will begin by offering an argument for the attractiveness of Thomas Aquinas
thought, by suggesting that historically, all discussions surrounding the issues
of divine action within the created order have attempted to embrace the most
of at least four metaphysical constants. These constants, or principles, are
1) Gods omnipotence and transcendence, 2) Gods providential action, 3) the
autonomy of natural causes, and 4) the success of reason and science. By pre-
senting Aquinas mechanism for divine action in nature, I will argue that, un-
like other past and contemporary proposals, Aquinas doctrine offers the pos-
sibility of holding to all these four principles. Finally, I will analyse the main
arguments held for and against Aquinas, reinforcing my suggestion of why
Aquinas ideas are attractive to thinkers today.

2. Thomas Aquinas and the History of Divine Action Theories

The importance of the question about divine action in nature is such that it
has been addressed often throughout Western intellectual history. William E.
Carroll notes that the concern to affirm both divine agency in the world and
also to affirm the integrity of nature so important for contemporary theo-
logians who are attracted to developments in recent science is hardly a new
concern. 3 Not only has modern science found issue with the idea of a God

acting directly in the universe, as it happens since the seventeenth century.

Christian and Muslim medieval philosophers and theologians have also had
concerns about the rationality and compatibility of causal powers in nature
and Gods activity in the world. Roughly sketched, it is possible to find this
problem in at least four episodes of western intellectual history. I will pres-
ent these four different episodes as to argue that it is metaphysically desirable
to hold the four distinct, though related, philosophical constants at stake in

3W.E. Carroll, Divine Agency, Contemporary Physics, and the Autonomy of Nature, The

Heytrop Journal , 49 (2008), pp. 582-602 : 586.

 divine action and thomism 67
the debates. As I mentioned before, these constants are Gods omnipotence
and transcendence, Gods providence, the autonomy of nature and, the suc-
cess of reason and the natural sciences. My argument will be that Aquinas
doctrine of Gods action in the created world allows for maintaining the four,
and hence proves to be an attractive solution to the problem of divine action
today.
The first episode is framed within ninth to twelfth century Islam, when ka-
lam theologians argued that, in order to affirm Gods omnipotence and power
over nature, as expressed in the Quran, it was necessary to restrict and even
deny natural powers. For kalam theologians, the nature of Gods omnipo-
tence and providence made it necessary to admit that there were no powers in
nature, but that it was God who acted in every event, maintaining the natural
order according to His will. This position was later known in seventeenth cen-
tury Europe as occasionalism, and it was chiefly defended within the Islamic
context during the twelfth century by al-Ghazali who in his famous book The
Incoherence of the Philosophers tried to show that philosophers who adopted
Greek views were unsuccessful in achieving a coherent theory of divine ac-
tion. Ghazali was the fruit of a long tradition that strongly defended that,
since Gods omnipotence and providence were unchangeable, it was neces-
sary to admit that there were no active powers in nature, but that it was God
who acted in every apparently natural event. Kalam theologians considered
that God re-creates out of nothing the universe at every instant, conceiving
creation to be an atomic and discrete event, by which God puts the universe
into existence every single moment of time. Thus, any causal action is itself
grounded in Gods creative causality : the single divine act which produces

the existence of the thing. Hence, for kalam theologians, all change involves
creation, since every change represents the realisation of a new being entire-
ly. With this doctrine kalam theologians were able to preserve Gods involve-
ment in the world, but paying the price of diminishing natural causal powers
as much as to deny the activities of nature.
On the other side of the Islamic philosophical-theological discussion on
divine action in nature was Averroes, one of the philosophers, deeply in-
fluenced by Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle. Averroes strongly reacted
to kalam theology arguing that nature acted in an orderly and autonomous
fashion, with its own powers, possibly leaving no space for God to act at all.
Averroes main idea was that because nature possesses autonomous princi-
ples of characteristic behaviour, namely Aristotelian forms, Gods omnipo-
tence needed to be so diminished as to deny the possibility of creation out of
nothing. The doctrine of creation out of nothing implied for Averroes that
anything could come from anything, and that there would be no congruity
between effects and causes. In addition, for Averroes if there were no natural
causes, there would be no scientific knowledge (knowledge of causes) and
68 ignacio silva
thus no wisdom ; from which follows that it would be impossible to prove the

existence of the cause of the existence of the universe, given that it would be
impossible to known the fact of causality at all. For Averroes, then, in patent
contrast with kalam theology, in order to accept the evidence of natural cau-
sality, one needed to diminish Gods activity in nature.
The second episode is set in medieval Christian Europe, in particular during
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when different positions appeared.
Of greatest importance for us are the ideas of Thomas Aquinas, who argued
both for a clear rejection of occasionalism and a strong position in favour of
creation ex nihilo, by arguing both for the autonomy of nature in its actions
and for Gods involvement in every action as primary cause. I will delve deep-
er into Aquinas position later on. Enough would be to say now that Aquinas
describes nature as an orderly world, where the order comes from natures
causes themselves, and in which God does not mix with them, allowing cre-
ated being to be a real cause of their effects, by causing the action of these
created secondary causes. This path of thought permits Aquinas to argue that
God acts providentially through secondary causes, as I will hope to show in
the following section. The fourteenth century saw positions closer to kalam
appear, for example, in the writings of Nicholas of Autrecourt, who held an
atomistic view of motion and matter, which, together with the impossibility
of knowledge of an intrinsic connection between cause and effect, led him
close to something similar to their occasionalism (leading, later on, to seven-
teenth century comparable positions).
The third episode occurred during the rise of modern science in the sev-
enteenth century, when scholars like Descartes, Galileo, Boyle, and Newton,
among many others, developed the notion of a mechanistic universe, joined
to an atomistic view of matter, which led to establishing the concept of laws
of nature, in patent opposition to the Aristotelian quest for natural causes.
The old efficiently and teleologically active nature was transformed into an in-
animate, powerless, and a-causal conjunction of bodies. Given that atoms, the
basic elements of which bodies were composed, had no internal properties
or causal powers atoms had no forms they needed to be directed in their
apparently orderly movements by an external power : Gods own very power.

The laws of nature, thus, became an external divine imposition of order onto
the world : God was in direct control over what happened in His creation. It is

in this particularly important period of history that the old theories of atom-
ism regained strength, and the quest on causation was contextualised under
its broad framework. Thus, different approaches towards the relation between
divine and natural causation appeared in the scene, with a particular emphasis
on that of occasionalism. By the end of the seventeenth century, philosophers
either abandoned all attempts to clarify the metaphysical notion of causation,
or adopted a kind of occasionalist perspective on causality. Occasionalism as
 divine action and thomism 69
an understanding of Gods omnipotence and of the natural order seemed the
perfect fit to the new natural philosophy of the seventeenth century. The sci-
entific enterprise remained a search for the apparent relation between events,
and hence, the notions of natural causes and effects, within the scientific
perspective, lost all metaphysical meaning. The laws of nature, grounded on
Gods immutable and eternal will, were understood to be necessary and ex-
ceptionless ways of Gods activity in the world.
The fourth and final chapter in this story is the contemporary debate on di-
vine action and providence, which sets the discussion in similar terms : if God

is to be said to act in nature, something must be done with natural causality.

The solution many offer today implies that there should be no natural causes
where and when God acts. Scholars today assume that it is necessary to affirm
a lack of natural powers to find a space for God to act in the created order.
Scholars such as Robert Russell, Thomas Tracy, John Polkinghorne, Arthur
Peacocke, Philip Clayton, and Nancey Murphy, making use of the develop-
ments of twentieth century science which pointed towards the indeterminate
character of the natural processes (such as quantum or evolutionary process-
es), developed several theological models to understand Gods involvement
in nature.
The key move in their arguments is to find in the current scientific theo-
ries places where to locate Gods action within nature in ways which would
develop history in the directions God wants, but without disrupting the ap-
parent lawful natural order. These places were found in the real causal gaps
existing within the causal order of nature. These gaps would allow God to
interact with creation without disrupting the works of nature, without break-
ing or intervening its laws. Following, for example, the emergence of an inde-
terministic account of nature given by the development of quantum mechan-
ics in the twentieth century, Russell, Tracy, Murphy, and the others explored
the possibility of understanding divine action through these indeterminacies. 4

The indeterminism of quantum events offered these scholars the conceptual

framework where to place Gods action, without disrupting the natural caus-
al order, but determining its outcome. For these scholars, because the very
laws of nature show that there are events which are open to several distinct
outcomes, God could simply choose which outcome to determine without
breaking those laws. In addition to this quantum divine action thesis, other
proposals have also tried to use the non-deterministic character of twentieth-

4 See in particular the impressive six volumes under the title of Scientific Perspectives on
Divine Action edited by Robert Russell et al. For a full review of the project see R. Russell,
Challenge and Progress in Theology and Science : An Overview of the VO/CTNS Series, in R.

Russell, N. Murphy, W. Stoeger (eds.), Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Twenty Years
of Challenge and Progress, Vatican Observatory-ctns, Rome-Berkeley 2008, pp. 3-56.
70 ignacio silva
century physics : John Polkinghorne, for example, has argued for divine action

in and through chaotic systems, Arthur Peacocke suggested models of top-

down divine causation, and Philip Clayton held that theories of emergence
could be regarded as a viable path to think new models of divine action. Many
other scholars have objected to these approaches, mainly due to the fact that
Gods action seems to be conceived as any creatures action (a cause-among-
causes), rendering God not to be omnipotent or even provident. 5

As I advanced early in this section, I believe there are four metaphysical

principles or constants that guide these discussions. Each position throughout
history, in each of the four episodes described, opted for one or more of these
principles. Briefly presented, the four constants are : 1) Gods omnipotence

and transcendence : roughly understood as God having the power to bring

about any non-contradictory state of affairs in the universe together with the
idea that God is utterly distinct from the created universe and its parts. 2)
Gods providential action in the created universe, meaning that God not only
creates and sustains the universe, but also acts in objective and direct ways in
nature to guide it to its fulfilment. 3) The autonomy of nature in its activity, in
the sense that, for what we empirically know, there is no reason to admit that
nature needs anything extra-nature to act in an orderly and regular manner.
4) The success of natural science and reason, meaning that reason and science
(broadly understood as an empirical study of nature) have a rightful access to
nature, to its activities, and can describe these in some kind of rational and
naturalistic way.
Gods omnipotence was maintained against natural powers for some in me-
dieval Islam and in fourteenth-century occasionalism, while natures autono-
mous agency was emphasised in opposition to Gods power in Averroes and
in todays debate : God cannot act where there are natural causes acting, or

put it in other terms, if God is to act, there can be no other causes at all. The
denial of natural powers, that is, powers intrinsic to natural things, during
the seventeenth century led to the acceptance of Gods direct and continuous

5 The main argument being that if the only alternative is to accept that God should act
according to what a scientific theory states, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that
Gods action should be considered an action as any natural causes action. Thomas Tracy
has made this conclusion explicit, perhaps inadvertently, when claiming that we have good

reason not to deny that God might act among secondary causes to affect the ongoing course
of events (my emphasis). See T. Tracy, Scientific Vetoes and the Hands-Off God : Can We Say

that God Acts in History ?, Theology and Science , 10/1, (2012), pp. 56-78 : 61. See also W.E.

Carroll, Divine Agency, cit. ; M. Dodds, Unlocking Divine Causality : Aquinas, Contemporary

Science, and Divine Action, Angelicum , 86 (2009), pp. 67-86 ; I. Silva, John Polkinghorne on

Divine Action : a Coherent Theological Evolution, Science and Christian Belief , 24/1 (2012),

pp. 19-30 ; T.A. Smedes, Chaos, Complexity, and God : Divine Action and Scientism, Peeters,

Leuven-Paris-Dudley 2004 ; E.A. Johnson, Does God Play Dice ? Divine Providence and Chance,

Theological Studies , 56 (1996), pp. 3-18.

 divine action and thomism 71
action in the universe, enforcing, ironically for some, the success of natural
science. It seems evident that for the most part, the key question was whether
to affirm Gods omnipotence (kalam) and providence (seventeenth century
occasionalism and todays scholars) in addition to denying the causal power of
nature, or vice-versa : to affirm natures causal powers, while diminishing the

power of God, but holding the success of reason in studying nature (todays
scholars and Averroes position). Carroll clarifies this situation when saying
that the fear is that any causality one attributes to God must, accordingly, be

denied to creatures. This is precisely the fear which informs many who de-
fend creation against evolution as well as those who defend evolution against
creation : both opposing sides view the general terms of the discourse in the

same way . 6 Finally, Aquinas perspective claims to portrait a plausible way of

holding all these four principles together, by affirming Gods radical distinc-
tiveness implied in his doctrine of creation, which results in holding, through
the doctrine of primary and secondary causation, that natural causes are in-
deed causes on their own right. Following Carroll again, Thomas thinks that

to defend the fact that creatures are real causes, far from challenging divine
omnipotence, is a powerful argument for divine omnipotence. As he says,
to deny the power of creatures to be the causes of things is to detract from
the perfection of creatures and, thus, to detract from the perfection of di-
vine power . 7 Nicanor Austriaco joins Carroll in praising Aquinas, pointing to

the doctrines great explanatory power and its ability to unify an enormous

amount of theological data . 8 To this doctrine I now turn my attention.

3. Thomas Aquinas on Divine Action :

Primary and Secondary Causation

The basic idea behind the notions of primary and secondary causation, used
throughout the middle Ages to explain the way in which God interacts with
the created natural causes, is that God somehow causes the action of natural
causes, which nevertheless are said to have their own causal powers. This doc-
trine follows closely, and builds upon, the doctrine of creation out of nothing,
affirming that God not only creates the natural world giving it its causal pow-
ers, but also moves, in some way, created causes to cause. Hence it is said that
God acts in and through created natural causes. The key to understanding the
issue is elucidating the meaning of the somehow or in some way, and phi-
losophers and theologians since medieval times have been undertaking this

6W.E. Carroll, Creation and the Foundations of Evolution, Angelicum , 87 (2010), pp.

45-60, p. 51.
7W.E. Carroll, Creation and the Foundations of Evolution, cit., p. 54.
8N. Austriaco, In Defense of Double Agency in Evolution : A Response to Five Modern Critics,

Angelicum , 80 (2003), pp. 947-966 : 952.

72 ignacio silva
task, which today comes back to the discussion table due to the contemporary
discussions on divine action and science to which I referred above.
Probably the most important thinker to give a full and plausibly working
account of how these two notions should be understood is Thomas Aquinas.
His thought has inspired many different arguments for and against under-
standing Gods relation to natural causes through the notions of primary and
secondary causation, and it is him to whom most twentieth and twenty-first
century authors relate when discussing these ideas. In what follows I will in-
troduce some key ideas for understanding Thomas Aquinas account, later on
to move onto how Aquinas doctrine has been interpreted and argued for and
against it in recent years.
Aquinas states his account of Gods operation in nature in detail in his Quaes-
tiones De Potentia Dei, question 3, article 7. He explains that to be the cause of
the action of something else can be understood in four different ways. First,
something can be said to give another thing the power to act : every operation

consequent to a certain power is ascribed to the giver of that power as effect

to cause. Hence, God causes all the actions of nature, because He creates, in
all natural things the powers by which they are able to act. Second, God may
be said to be the cause of an action of a created thing by upholding and sus-
taining the natural power in its being, since the preserver of a power is said
to cause the action, in the same way a remedy which preserves the sight is
said to make a man see. Thus, Aquinas argues that God not only creates the
causal powers when they first begin to exist, but also preserves these powers
in existence. Consequently, if the divine causality were to cease, all operation
would come to an end.
I have elsewhere called these first two instances static or founding moments
of God acting in and through natural agents. 9 The next two ways of God act-

ing in and through natural causes, which I called dynamic moments, are key
for Aquinas understanding of divine action and usually forgotten in many of
the discussions within todays debate. Thus, the third way of understanding
Gods operation in nature is as follows : a thing is said to cause anothers ac-

tion by moving it to act. Here Aquinas means that a primary cause applies the
power of a secondary cause to act, as a man causes the knifes cutting by ap-
plying the sharpness of the knife to cutting by moving it to cut. Hence, as the
knife does not act except through being moved (by the man), God causes the
action of every natural thing by moving and applying its power to act. Finally,
one thing causes the action of another, as a principal agent causes the action
of its instrument reaching an effect which goes beyond the power of the in-
strument. Since for Aquinas every natural thing is a being, and everything that

9 See I. Silva, Revisiting Aquinas on Providence and Rising to the Challenge of Divine Action in
Nature, The Journal of Religion , 94/3 (2014), pp. 277-291 : 281-282.

 divine action and thomism 73
acts in a certain way causes being, but being is the most common and intimate
first effect, belonging to God alone to produce by His own power, Aquinas ar-
gues that in every action of natural beings, since they cause being somehow,
God is the cause of that action, inasmuch as every agent is an instrument of
the divine power causing that being. 10

These final two ways of causing the action of another appear quite simi-
lar. Recalling Aquinas account of instrumental causes, however, will reveal
the difference. An instrument, when acting as an instrument, reaches two dif-
ferent effects : one which pertains to it according to its own nature ; another

which pertains to it insofar as it is moved by the primary agent and which

transcends its own nature. When Aquinas explains how God acts in nature
through natural agents by using them as instrumental causes, he uses the anal-
ogy of instrumental causality according to both ways of causing. The first of
the dynamic ways of Gods action refers to the first effect of an instrumental
cause. Thus, every agent performs its action according to its own nature and
powers, moved and applied by God. In the same manner, the second way of
causing the action of the instrument refers to the causing of being, which is
the effect that completely transcends the power of the natural being, though
it is given to it as a participation in Gods power.
Consequently, God works in everything to the extent that everything needs
His power in order to act. Therefore God is the cause of everythings action
inasmuch as He gives everything the power to act, preserves that power in
being (founding moments), applies it to action, and inasmuch as by His pow-
er every other power acts (dynamic moments). Nevertheless, this should be
understood in the sense that the causal powers of a natural thing suffice for
action in their own order, yet require the divine power. God and the natural
agents act on two different levels. The same effect is ascribed to a natural
cause and to God, not as though a part of the effect were performed by God
and a part by the natural agent : the whole effect proceeds from each, yet in

different ways, as the whole of the one same effect is ascribed to the instru-
ment, and again the whole is ascribed to the principal agent. This would seem
to imply, however, that it is not necessary to admit that nature works, because
if a sufficient cause is acting then there is no longer the necessity for another
cause, and God acts as a sufficient cause. In order to avoid the temptation of
falling into any form of occasionalism, Aquinas holds that the secondary (or
instrumental) cause determines the particular effect achieved by the action of
the primary cause. Moreover, Aquinas argues that God acts perfectly as first

10See ibidem ; J.F. Wippel, Thomas Aquinas on Creatures as Causes of Esse, in his Metaphysical

Themes in Thomas Aquinas ii, Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC 2007,
pp. 172-193 ; and R. te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas, Brill, Leiden

1995, pp. 165-166.

74 ignacio silva
cause : but the operation of nature as secondary cause is, in a sense, also nec-

essary because, although God can produce the natural effect even without na-
ture, He wishes to act by means of nature in order to preserve order in things.
It is not that God does not have the sufficient power to cause what He causes
through natural causes. Were He willing to do so, He could. God, however,
acts through natural causes because of the immensity of His goodness, by
which He decides to communicate His similitude to things, not only in their
existence, but also in their being the causes of other things.
With this doctrine Aquinas is able to hold the four metaphysical principles
discussed before. By characterising God as the primary cause of all things,
God is omnipotent and transcendent. By explaining the relation between the
primary cause and the secondary causes, God is also provident, and, in addi-
tion, nature has real causal powers that cause real effects. Finally, and even if I
did not discuss the issue here, for Aquinas the reality of these effects warrants
the truthfulness of reasons knowledge of the natural world. Acknowledging
these features, many contemporary scholars had offered Aquinas arguments
to solve the disputes over divine action today. I have chosen three examples of
these arguments to which I now turn.

4. Some uses of Aquinas doctrine today

There is a plethora of authors studying the thought of Thomas Aquinas, put-
ting it in dialogue with todays philosophy of religion, in particular with the
discussions surrounding Gods action in the created universe. As I implied
earlier, the main issues at stake come from questions raised by the natural
sciences, in particular by twentieth century developments in cosmology, evo-
lutionary biology, and quantum mechanics (there are other issues, for exam-
ple, those related to free will and providence, which I will omit from my dis-
cussion). Issues raised with cosmological backgrounds in mind are usually
tackled referring to Aquinas doctrine of creation out of nothing. William R.
Stoeger held these views, which I will address in the following paragraph. The
challenges that the theory of evolution through natural selection poses to the
doctrine of providence and to any idea of divine involvement in the history
of the natural world and of humanity in particular are well known. Nicanor
Austriaco, OP, deals with them by recurring to the doctrine of primary and
secondary causation, as Sarah Coakley does to engage with the evolution of
cooperation. William Carroll and myself also recur to this doctrine, based on
the doctrine of creation, to engage with issues coming from attempts to un-
derstand divine action through quantum mechanics. I will finally introduce a
few references to Michael Dodds major work on Aquinas on divine action.
Discussing Big Bang cosmology, William Stoeger, SJ (1943-2014), recurred
to the notion of creation out of nothing and its radical difference with expla-
 divine action and thomism 75
nations coming from the natural sciences. Thus, he explains that the basic

reason why creation ex nihilo is complementary to any scientific explanation,

including whatever quantum cosmology theoretically and observationally re-
veals about the earliest stages of our universe or multiverse and not an
alternative, is that it does not and cannot substitute for whatever the sciences
discover about origins. It simply provides an explanation or ground for the
existence and basic order of whatever the sciences reveal . 11 Holding a notion

of complete dependence upon God through Aquinas doctrine of creation

out of nothing means, for Stoeger, that the natural sciences do not compete
with metaphysical approaches to origins. On the contrary, these two are com-
plementary features of our understanding of such origins. Furthering on his
analysis, Stoeger emphasises that quantum cosmological scenarios or theo-

ries which describe the Planck era, and the Big Bang, or which describe
the primordial regularities, processes and transitions connected with these
extreme very early stages of the universe are in principle incapable of be-
ing alternatives to divine creation conceived as creatio ex nihilo. They simply
do not account for what creatio ex nihilo provides the ultimate ground of
existence and order. Reciprocally, creatio ex nihilo is not an alternative to the
processes and transitions quantum cosmology proposes and provides these
are models of the physical processes which generated our universe and every-
thing emerging from it Thus, quantum cosmology and creatio ex nihilo con-
tribute deeply complementary and consonant levels of understanding of the
reality in which we are immersed . 12 As it will become apparent with the rest

of scholars, it is clear that Stoeger is advocating for a strong position which

allows the natural sciences to be successful in their discoveries of natural pro-
cesses, which in themselves are autonomous, while still affirming the utter
dependence of these processes upon Gods creative action.
American microbiologist Nicanor Austriaco, OP, addresses the challenges
brought by the theory of evolution through natural selection with a stronger
emphasis on the distinction between Gods primary and creative causality and
creaturely secondary causality. It is worth quoting him in length when dis-
cussing the chanceful and unpredictable appearance of human language as an
essential element of human nature through a mutation in the FOXP2 gene
that occurred sometime during the last 200,000 years of human history as
an example of how both God and nature are at work in a random mutations :

the mutation which gave rise to language use occurred when a particular

DNA polymerase was repairing a DNA strand damaged by high energy ra-

11W.R. Stoeger, The Big Bang, Quantum Cosmology and creatio ex nihilo, in D.B. Burrell,
C. Cogliati, J.M. Soskice, W.R. Stoeger (eds.), Creation and the God of Abraham, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge 2010, pp. 152-175 : 169.

12W.R. Stoeger, op. cit., p. 175.

76 ignacio silva
diation. According to the classical account of double agency, God acts in this
event as efficient cause because he gives the DNA strand and the DNA poly-
merase their existence. Furthermore, he gives them their natures. The DNA
strand can be repaired by the DNA polymerase because God made them what
they are. Indeed, the DNA polymerase was able to introduce a random mu-
tation into the FOXP2 gene precisely because God knew it and thus created
it as error-prone and capable of randomly making mistakes. In introducing
the genetic mutation into the DNA strand, the polymerase was functioning
according to its nature. It was striving for its end that was established by God
as Final Cause. Finally, the mutagenic event can be said to be ordained from
all eternity, and in this sense be providential, because in knowing the DNA
polymerase as error prone, God knows it as error-prone and existing at a par-
ticular time and place. The random event which gave rise to human FOXP2
occurred at the time and place that it did because God knew it and allowed
it to exist precisely as happening in our past rather than in our present or in
our future . 13 Reflecting on the idea that creaturely and divine activity do not

mix up, Austriaco argues that classical double agency allows one to accom-

plish the task of explaining noninterventionist objective special divine action

without denying either the mystery of divine providence where God knows
all events in past, present, and future, or the radical distinction between the
Creator and his creatures . 14 Again as with Stoeger, Austriaco is attracted to

Aquinas doctrine of primary and secondary causation because it allows him

to maintain the distinction between the work of the natural sciences in the
discovering the autonomous activity of nature even if that activity is ran-
dom or chanceful and the discourse about God, while holding high the prin-
ciples of divine providential guidance of the universe and transcendence.
Oxford-based philosopher William E. Carroll clearly expresses the reasons
for being attracted to Aquinas doctrine, when, while analysing evolutionary
biology in light of Aquinas thought, he defends a Thomistic analysis of cre-

ation and the relative self-sufficiency of nature because this analysis helps

us to see that the very processes which evolutionary biology explains depend
upon Gods creative act . 15 For Carroll the very intelligibility of nature de-

pends upon a source which transcends the processes of nature , because, he

continues, without the very fact that all that is is completely dependent upon

God as cause, there would be no evolution at all . 16 Carroll is evidently more

adamant in expressing creations radical dependence upon God both in its be-
ing and in its acting. The very reason for nature to be causally powerful is be-
cause it intrinsically depends upon the Gods creative power, which transcends

13N. Austriaco, op. cit., p. 956. 14 Ibidem, p. 950.

15W.E. Carroll, Creation and the Foundations of Evolution, cit., p. 51.
16 Ibidem, p. 51 (my emphasis).
 divine action and thomism 77
all creation. Following Thomas, Carroll holds that no matter how random

one thinks evolutionary change is, for example ; no matter how much one

thinks that natural selection is the master mechanism of change in the world
of living things ; the role of God as Creator, as continuing cause of the whole

reality of all that is, is not challenged . 17 If asked for the reason of this asser-

tion, Carroll would answer with what is perhaps his most important insight
into Aquinas account of God as a cause : creatio non est mutatio creation is

not a change. Anything the natural sciences discover about the proper work-
ings of nature would always refer to a change. But Gods action does not in-
volve change, because, based on Aquinas doctrine of creation out of nothing,
there is nothing there to change when God creates. Carroll similarly ends his
analysis of the physical sciences in relation to divine action stating that the

complete dependence of all that is on God does not challenge an appropriate

autonomy of natural causation ; God is not a competing cause in a world of

other causes. In fact, Gods causality is such that He causes creatures to be the
kind of causal agents which they are. In an important sense, there would be
no autonomy to the natural order were God not causing it to be so . 18

Scholars not typically associated with Aquinas have also found his thought
attractive when discussing evolutionary biology. In her interesting and
thought-provoking work with Harvard biologist Martin Nowak on the evolu-
tion of cooperation, Cambridge theologian Sarah Coakley explicitly recurs
to Aquinas notions of primary and secondary causation, arguing that clas-

sic Thomism fares particularly well as an accompaniment to evolutionary

dynamics . 19 After a quick but careful presentation of the evolutionary phe-

nomenon of cooperation, Coakley addresses three challenges that evolution-

ary biology poses to classical theism, stating that it is vital to avoid the pre-

sumption that God competes with the evolutionary process as a (very big) bit
player in the temporal unfolding of natural selection Rather, God is that-
without-which-there-would-be-no-evolution-at-all . 20 In fact, she continues,

the no-contest position is to be affirmed for its right insistence that God and

the evolutionary process are not on the same level, whether temporally or in
substance , 21 making clear that Thomas emphasis on Gods transcendence

is key for understanding Gods relation to any evolutionary process.

Besides discussing Aquinas thought in relation to evolutionary biology,
William Carroll also engages with other scientific and theological perspec-

17 W.E. Carroll, Divine Agency, cit., p. 591. 18 Ibidem, p. 595.

19S. Coakley, Providence and the Evolutionary Phenomenon of Cooperation : A Systematic

Proposal, in F. Aran Murphy and P.G. Ziegler, The Providence of God : Deus Habet Consilium,

T&T Clark, Edinburgh 2009, pp. 181-195 : 182.

20 S. Coakley, Providence and the Evolutionary Phenomenon of Cooperation : A Systematic

Proposal, cit., p. 186. 21 Ibidem, p. 190.

78 ignacio silva
tives on divine action, also resolving them by recurring to Aquinas ideas. For
example, he deals with Robert Russells idea that God needs indeterminate
events in nature, such as quantum events, to act in nature, and the associated
idea that the traditional notion of God needs to be left aside, because it can-
not account for a non-deterministic nature (the argument being that a nec-
essary being can only bring about necessary effects). Carroll counter argues
that God is so powerful that His causal agency also produces the modality of

its effect : the effect is assimilated to Gods will in every way so that not only

what happens occurs because God wills it to happen, but it happens in that
way which God wills it to happen. Gods will transcends and constitutes the
whole hierarchy of created causes, both causes which always and necessarily
produce their effects and causes which at times fail to produce their effects.
We can say that God causes chance events to be chance events . 22 With these

ideas Carroll wants to emphasise that God, by being constantly active in na-
ture through secondary causes, does not need indeterminate events allowing
Him to intervene, so to speak, in the history and development of His creation.
For him, this would imply a diminishing of Gods power and a negation of
Gods transcendence, reducing God to a cause among causes. Thus, Carroll
strongly asserts that the source of most of the difficulties in grasping an ad-

equate understanding of the relationship between the created order and God
is the failure to understand divine transcendence. It is Gods very transcen-
dence, a transcendence beyond any contrast with immanence, which enables
God to be intimately present in the world as cause. God is not transcendent
in such a way that He is outside or above or beyond the world. God is not
different from creatures in the way in which creatures differ from one another.
We might say that God differs differently from the created order . 23 Ulti-

mately, Gods will transcends and constitutes the whole hierarchy of created

causes, both causes which always and necessarily produce their effects and
causes which at times fail to produce their effects , 24 which means that nature

is no position to allow God to act, but that, on the contrary, it requires Gods
constant creative action to be able to act by itself. 25

Finally, American Thomist Michael Dodds, OP, has also argued extensively
in a relatively new comprehensive volume for a Thomistic understanding of
divine action. I will not address the details of his analysis, and focus mostly
in his conclusions. After a long investigation of the current debates on divine
action, its assumptions and difficulties, and after presenting his solution based
on the very notion of God causing efficiently, formally and finally, Dodds con-
cludes that the creator of the universe is not in competition with his crea-

22W.E. Carroll, Creation and the Foundations of Evolution, cit., p. 53.

23 Idem, Divine Agency, cit., p. 590. 24 Ibidem, p. 589.
25 I have dealt with similar issues in my Revisiting Aquinas.
 divine action and thomism 79
tures, but is rather the source of their proper actions. Aquinas sees no com-
petition but compassion as the font of all Gods works. God is not distant,
but intimately present in the being and action of each creature. His acting
is not called intervention since that term fails to represent the intimacy of
his presence . 26 This intimate presence, which directly speaks of the utter

transcendence to which Carroll was referring above, allows Dodds to refer

to Gods causing in terms of Aristotelian causes. Thus, Dodds argues that
the God who is the efficient and exemplar cause of all things, creating them

in his likeness and present in all their actions, is also the final cause drawing
all creation to its fulfilment in him. Each creature, through its action, seeks
to share Gods goodness according to the capacity of its particular nature . 27

The key feature that Dodds wants to stress throughout his work is that, while
there is an infinite difference between creative and created causes, by acting,

the creature attains its proper perfection, which is a participation in the perfec-
tion of the creator. Each creature, by acting according to its nature, imitates
the perfection of God . 28 Once again we find that Dodds finds in Aquinas the

elements to hold Gods transcendent provident action in relation to a depen-

dent though autonomous creation.

5. Some objections to Aquinas understanding of primary

and secondary causation
Even when Aquinas doctrines are regarded as very attractive with regards
to the issue of divine action, there have been some recent objections to their
principal propositions. There are two basic objections made against Aquinas
account today. The first one is best represented by the ideas of John Polking-
horne. He argues that the distinction between primary and secondary causa-
tion is not enough to explain Gods action in the world, because it requires
admitting that it is either God or nature which produces the effect. Philip
Clayton joins Polkinghorne affirming that emphasising Gods action as pri-
mary cause runs the risk of falling into a form of occasionalism, where it is
only God who causes events in nature ; whereas emphasising natures action

would deny any kind of divine activity in the universe. 29 Keith Ward is of

similar ideas. The second kind of objection derives from ideas put forward by
Thomas Tracy. Simply put, he argues that Aquinas perspective is not enough

26 M.J. Dodds, Unlocking Divine Action. Contemporary Science & Thomas Aquinas, Catholic
University of America Press, Washington DC 2012, p. 260. 27 Ibidem, p. 261.
28 Ibidem, p. 260.
29N. Murphy, in her Divine Action in the Natural Order, in R.J. Russell, N. Murphy,
A.R. Peacocke (eds.), Chaos and Complexity, cit., pp. 325-57 (on p. 333), also agrees with this
objection. For her, any double agency approach suffers from two defects : it leaves no room

for special divine acts, and it leads directly to occasionalism.

80 ignacio silva
to give a solid theological account of a God who is objectively and personally
involved in the lives of human beings. The main problem with these objec-
tions is that Aquinas account of primary and secondary causation is usually
conflated with Austin Farrers, a twentieth century Oxford theologian ; and

that Aquinas account is usually not presented in full. Using similar terminol-
ogy, Farrer tries, and according to Polkinghorne fails, to explain Gods action
in the universe. This failure, however, is unfairly attributed to Aquinas. The
objections, I think, hold against Farrers views, but that they do not against
Aquinas position.
John Polkinghorne understands Thomas Aquinas and Austin Farrers ac-
counts of the notions of primary and secondary causation to be essentially the
same. 30 Polkinghorne objects that this way of understanding Gods action in

the world rest solely on faith and remains ineffable and veiled from the eyes of
human reason, complaining that there is no explanation given on how prima-
ry causality works, 31 which remains unintelligible. Thus, it becomes a fideistic

solution to the problem of divine action, which turns to be more of an eva-

sion than a solution. Clayton agrees with Polkinghorne, explaining that the
doctrine could be understood in two ways : Gods being the sustainer of exis-

tence or Gods being one of the efficient causes affecting every event. The first
does not solve the problem of divine action (an argument supported by Keith
Ward). The second comes close to occasionalism or to denying Gods divinity.
Thus, Clayton claims, it is unclear how appeals to double agency can help to

resolve the tensions raised by claims to divine action , 32 simply because an ac-

tion belongs to one or the other agent, namely God or the natural agent. In this
perspective, then, the doctrine of primary and secondary causality 1) leaves the
whole problem of divine action in the world shrouded in mist ; 2) it does not

solve the issue of particular divine actions ; and 3) it promotes occasionalism.

Farrers doctrine of double agency explains how God and a natural agent
act to cause a single event ; or that God acts in and through the actions of

finite agents without destroying their individual integrity and relative inde-
pendence. This doctrine was a key notion in Farrers account of divine provi-
dence. From his perspective, Gods agency must actually be such, so as to
work omnipotently on, in, or through creaturely agencies without either forc-
ing them or competing with them. Thus, argues Farrer, both Gods and the
creatures agencies are completely real in causing the effect. So far, the doc-
trine seems similar to Aquinas. The problem arises when Farrer affirms that it

30J. Polkinghorne, Science and Theology. An Introduction, spck-Fortress Press, London-

Minneapolis 1998, p. 86.
31 See, for example, J. Polkinghorne, The Metaphysics of Divine Action, in R.J. Russell,
N. Murphy, A.R. Peacocke (eds.), Chaos and Complexity, cit., pp. 147-156 : 150.

32 Ibidem, p. 177.
 divine action and thomism 81
is impossible to conceive the causal joint between omnipotent creativity and
the creatures agency. In fact, how God works in creation is a mystery which
cannot be understood. 33 Hence, Farrer fails to provide an explanation of the

way in which divine and creaturely agencies are related, just as Polkinghorne
and Clayton claimed.
By protecting himself behind the shield of religious experience, Farrer be-
comes accountable for Polkinghornes main critique : it is a fideistic position,

which renounces an exploration of the reality of Gods action in the world in

the name of faith, which also fails to provide a technical explanation of the
articulation between created and Gods causation.
Thomas Tracy objects that the doctrine of primary and secondary causes
fails to provide a proper understanding of a personal divine action. Tracy ex-
plains Aquinas, affirming that God as creator gives being to creatures, and
does so at every moment throughout the creatures history, and that this di-
vine creative action does not cause a change in the creature, but rather brings
it about that that creature exists at all. He continues to explain that created
natural things cause changes in other created things, concluding his exposi-
tion stating that, for Aquinas, both God and creatures act in every change
which takes place in nature. In fact, he claims, God must act in order for crea-
tures to act. 34 Tracys objection is the following : if God acts exclusively as

the absolute ontological ground of all events, and never acts directly to affect
the course of history, can we say that God responds to the dramas of human
history ? . 35 His answer is no. If God only gives and sustains things in being,

God is not acting directly to affect the course of the history of the universe
and humanity. Surprisingly, some proponents of Aquinas account take a simi-
lar view, rendering Aquinas doctrine in a weak position over against Tracys
objection. The difficulty, however, comes from Tracys incomplete portrayal
of Aquinas doctrine. As I explained earlier, Aquinas full account include the
creative and the sustaining aspects of Gods action complemented by two fur-
ther aspects, which explain how God can be said to be providentially active
throughout nature.
Unfortunately for these scholars, none of these objections address Aquinas
full doctrine. A complete, and arguably rational, explanation of Gods act-
ing in and through secondary causes implies not only that God creates and
sustains secondary causes (the founding moments), but also that God applies
the secondary cause to be the cause and that God reaches effects which go

33A. Farrer, Faith and Speculation. An Essay in Philosophical Theology, Adam & Charles
Black, London 1967, p. 110.
34T. Tracy, Special Divine Action and the Laws of Nature, in R.J. Russell, N. Murphy,
W.R. Stoeger (eds.), Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, cit., pp. 249-283 : 255.

35 Ibidem, p. 257.
82 ignacio silva
beyond the secondary causes power (the dynamic moments). Thus, in terms
of the first kind of objections, Aquinas position is not Farrers. For Aquinas
the interplay between primary and secondary causes is a problem which has
a rational, metaphysically complex solution, which is a strongly non-fideistic
way of understanding how God acts through secondary causes with the four-
fold view of Gods action : God gives the power, sustains the power, applies

the power to cause, and achieves effects which go beyond that natural power
He applies. These last two features are technically explained in Aquinas work,
and with them Aquinas shows how every action of every natural agent is to be
referred to God. Thus Aquinas explanation is intelligible through the analogy
of instrumental causality. At the same time, divine action remains ineffable,
since God is absolutely beyond human reason. Aquinas also rejects occasion-
alism by explaining that natural agents need Gods influence in order for them
to work. It is a view of nature working with Gods power, which also rejects
the position that it is only nature at work in the production of natural effects.
Finally, this four-fold way of understanding Gods action in nature expresses
that Gods action is objective and special, as scholars today claim they should
be. Since each of these actions is done through the divine intellect and will,
Aquinas doctrine gives an account of special providence. Thus, Tracys ques-
tion about Gods providence and guidance of the universe and human history
can be given a positive answer. God acts providentially, i.e. knowing and will-
ing what happens, in and through every natural agent. In fact, when Aquinas
addresses the question of divine providence he uses all these metaphysical
technicalities to provide an answer. 36

6. Conclusion
Thomas Aquinas knew that it is not easy to solve the question of divine ac-
tion in nature. 37 Nevertheless, with full metaphysical arsenal of arguments he

offered in the thirteenth century a plausible and complex account of divine

action in which every natural effect is caused both by the first and the second-
ary cause. This account is held today by many to be sufficiently attractive as
to recur to it in order to engage contemporary problems, mostly raised by the
natural sciences. Even if there are some objectors, I have shown that there are
plausible solutions to their objections in Aquinas writings.

36See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, iii, cc. 71-75. In particular in chapter
75 when he states that God acts in all secondary causes, and all of their effects are to

be referred to God as their cause : thus anything which is done in these particulars is His

own work. Therefore their particular motions and actions are subjected to the divine
providence .

37 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, iii, c. 70 : Some find it difficult to see how

to understand that natural effects are to be attributed to God and to natural agents .

 divine action and thomism 83
I have tried to show in this paper why Aquinas doctrines are attractive to-
day, presenting a brief history of the discussions surrounding the issue divine
action, which metaphysical principles led them, and how Aquinas thought
has been seen lately to be able to hold all of them. As Elizabeth Johnson has
remarked, one of the strengths of Aquinass vision is the autonomy he

grants to created existence through its participation in divine being. He is so

convinced of the transcendent mystery of God esse ipsum subsistens and so
clear about the sui generis way God continuously creates the world into being
that he sees no threat to divinity in allowing creatures the fullest measure of
agency according to their own nature. In fact, it is a measure of the creative
power of God to raise up creatures who participate in divine being to such a
degree that they are also creative and sustaining in their own right . 38 Schol-

ars who hold Thomas account are certain that they will be able to defend
Gods transcendence and providence, as well as the autonomy of the natural
causes in conjunction with the success of rational knowledge of those natural
processes. Ultimately, for all these philosophers and theologians today, not on-
ly those present in these pages, the account Aquinas offers of divine agency

and the autonomy and integrity of nature is not merely an artefact from the
past, but an enduring legacy . 39

Abstract : In this paper I suggest a reason why the Thomas Aquinas doctrine of providence

is attractive to contemporary philosophers of religion in the English-speaking academy. The

main argument states that there are at least four metaphysical principles that guided discus-
sions on providence and divine action in the created world, namely divine omnipotence and
transcendence, divine providential action, the autonomy of natural created causes, and the
success of reason and natural science. Aquinas doctrine, I hold, is capable of affirming these
four principles without rejecting any of them, as it is in the cases of other doctrines. In ad-
dition, I present and answer some objections raised against Aquinas thought, and briefly
expand on how Aquinas ideas on providence are used today to tackle issues regarding con-
temporary science, such as evolutionary biology, quantum mechanics, and big bang theory.
Keywords : Thomas Aquinas, Providence, Divine Action, Thomism.

38E. Johnson, Does God Play Dice ? Divine Providence and Chance, Theological Studies ,

57 (1996), pp. 3-18 : 11.

39W.E. Carroll, Creation and the Foundations of Evolution, cit., p. 60.